1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system capable of sharing assembly data between a computer aided design (CAD) computer system, such as Autodesk(copyright)""s AutoCAD(copyright), and a manufacturing computer system, such as ProfitKey International""s Rapid Response Manufacturing(copyright).
2. Description of Related Art
CAD computer application programs, such as Autodesk""s AutoCAD(copyright), are used by engineers and draftspersons for designing and drawing, among other things, assemblies, such as a nut, bolt and washer assembly. An assembly usually consists of components, such as the nut, the bolt and the washer, but also may include subassemblies consisting of a number of related components. Attribute data, such as part number and description, are associated with the components, subassemblies and assemblies.
Generally, the designer will draw an assembly including these components and subassemblies. In particular, a rendition of each component or subassembly is predrawn and saved in a file separate from the drawing file. The set of separate part files would comprise a library of available parts. The designer then selects the component he needs from the library and reconfigures it to meet the design requirements of the assembly.
CAD systems, however, have a number of drawbacks. For example, CAD systems generally do not (1) provide means for organizing a library of commonly used parts or of created parts, (2) provide a means for retrieving drawings by any other data type than their filenames, (3) provide means for automatically assigning part numbers to components and assemblies, (4) provide means for comparing existing part descriptions or searching using part descriptions, and (5) means for insuring the filename matches the information in the title block. Moreover, CAD applications generally experience long time delays when searching for drawing files in directories containing large number of files since they rely on the operating system and do not use a database. Further, when combining a small file to a larger assembly file, such as when inserting a block into a drawing under edit, the smaller file is represented by an object and is therefore uneditable. If editing of that object is required, the object must first be converted to its original construction, causing all corresponding attribute data to be irretrievably lost and thus can no longer be accounted for in the CAD system.
Manufacturing computer systems, such as ProfitKey International""s Rapid Response Manufacturing(copyright) system, use assembly data from the assembly designed by the engineers to allow manufacturing personnel to plan, schedule and control the manufacturing of the assembly. It also allows manufacturers to manage and control inventory, such as the required components and subassemblies, and do other various manufacturing-related tasks, such as cost estimating and purchasing.
The assembly data is entered, usually by hand, into the manufacturing system. One known system, Innovative Dynamics PKBOM, extracts data from an AutoCAD(copyright) system assembly, specifically the part number and description and the relation between the part numbers, and manipulates this data so that it can be imported into the ProfitKey manufacturing system. This system, however, requires the operator of the CAD system to be intimate with the capabilities of the CAD system, and is dependent upon the proper operation of the CAD system.
In general, in CAD systems, parts are synonymous with a drawing or a file. Thus, this system cannot provide means for determining whether a part exists, means for previewing a part, automatic assignment of part numbers to the components and assemblies, comparing descriptions of components, or the transfer of any assembly data other than the part number and description. Moreover, PKBOM disadvantageously requires that the user manually save each drawing, update the title block and separately log onto to the manufacturing computer system to import the data.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system for sharing assembly data between a CAD system and a manufacturing system that overcomes the above-described drawbacks of prior systems.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for creating assembly drawings and generating assembly data within a CAD system.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method of transferring the assembly data to a manufacturing system.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for searching, selecting and manipulating items, such as components or subassemblies, by their description.
It is another object of the present invention to treat parts as objects rather than drawing files because a part may require more than one drawing file to represent the part properly throughout the manufacturing cycle. For example, if an assembly consists of a nut, a bolt and a washer, an assembly drawing would be required to illustrate the relation between the parent part, i.e., the nut-bolt-washer assembly, and its children parts, i.e., the nut, the bolt and the washer. If another part, for example, a bracket assembly, is to be assembled from a bracket, a shelf and the nut-bolt-washer subassembly, another assembly drawing would be required to illustrate the relation between parent bracket assembly and its children parts. In this example, the nut-bolt-washer assembly needs to be represented as an assembly in one phase of the manufacturing cycle, but as a component in another phase of the manufacturing cycle. It is an object of the present invention to provide a system that will automatically create both versions of the required drawing files, i.e, the component version consisting of the graphics and data alone and the assembly version consisting of additional graphics and data, dimensions, material list box, border, title block, etc. It is another object of the present invention to provide a system that when the part is retrieved and selected for insertion into an assembly drawing, the system automatically inserts the correct representation of the part, that is, the component version.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, a method of generating an assembly drawing using a computer aided design computer system is provided, the method including the steps of (1) operating the computer aided design computer system and (2) determining whether an item to be used in the assembly drawing exists in the memory of the computer system. In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a method of generating an assembly drawing using a computer aided design computer system is provided, the method including the steps of (1) operating the computer aided design computer system, (2) determining whether an item to be used in the assembly drawing exists in the memory of the computer system, (3) creating the item during the operation of the computer system if no item exists and (4) adding the created item to the assembly drawing.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, another method of generating an assembly drawing using a computer aided design computer system is provided. This method includes the steps of (1) operating the computer aided design computer system, (2) determining whether an item to be used in the assembly drawing exists in the memory of the computer system, (3) selecting the item during the operation of the computer system if the item exists and (4) adding the selected component to the assembly drawing.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the invention, a system for transferring assembly data between a computer aided design computer system and a manufacturing computer system is provided, the system including (1) first networking circuitry in the computer aided design computer system, (2) second networking circuitry in the manufacturing computer system and (3) communication circuitry for transferring assembly data from the first networking circuitry to the second networking circuitry. An execution of an interface application residing in the computer aided design computer system causes the communication circuitry to perform the transfer of the assembly data.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the invention, another system for transferring assembly data is provided. This system includes (1) a first computer system for performing computer aided design, (2) a second computer system for manufacturing control and (3) networking circuitry for transferring the assembly data between the first computer system and the second computer system. The first computer system includes an input device for inputting operator data, a memory for storing an interface application and the assembly data generated from an assembly drawing created by the operator in accordance with the input operator data, and a processor for processing the interface application to cause the assembly data to be transferred to the second computer system by the networking circuitry.